How urban art changed one of Medellin’s most deprived neighborhood

Medellin, 23 August 2016 — In a deprived district of Medellin, hip hop enabled the community to convey a message of peace and to show that the arts and community work are ways to fight against crime and delinquency. Art changed inhabitants’ perceptions of their neighborhood and improved the reputation of the georgraphic enclave.See more.

How urban art changed one of Medellin’s most deprived neighborhood

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 23 August 2016

While Medellin was labeled the world’s most dangerous city, the 13th district was its nerve center. This district was plagued by violence of guerrillas, narcos, and paramilitaries. But according to its inhabitants, the most terrible moment was when the army entered the barrios during “Operation Orion” in 2002, a military operation which became infamous due to the number of civilian victims, missing people, and extrajudicial executions.

When mayor Fajardo came to power in 2004, the local government decided to start addressing the “social debt” owed by the government to marginalized areas, and state investment in the 13th district skyrocketed. At this time, the process of participatory budgeting started. Escalators and a cable car were built to improve mobility, and investment in education increased, with the construction of new libraries.

If state intervention in the 13th district is key to understand its transformation and violence reduction, we should also give credit to community initiatives, especially cultural ones. Due to its terrible history, this district has a deep tradition of community organizing and popular initiatives, even prior to recent developments.

The best example of this trend is hip hop. Some young people who wanted to provide an alternative for kids not to start committing crime founded “Casa Kolacho”, a hip hop cultural center, where rap, graffiti, breakdancing, and DJing are taught. They convey a message of peace and want to stimulate “a revolution without death.” Casa Kolacho is one of the many artistic movements of the 13th district, with Casa Morada, Hip Hop C15, Camaleón Producciones, and Agro Arte, which work to show that art and community work are ways to fight against crime and armed conflict. The rapper Jeihhco of the band C15 is one of the main voices of this movement, while the graffiti artist Jomag succeeded in changing greyish walls to spaces full of colors, with the idea that transforming someone’s surroundings can invigorate someone’s life and creativity.

Young people of the 13th district were supported by the city government. Through the “Medellin is Painted For Life” project, the city hall financed painting for local artists to do graffiti and for residents to paint their house of all colors. This initiative helped to close the gap between the authorities and the community, hence to improve citizens’ confidence in local institutions – a project implemented in the context of “pedagogical urbanism” promoted by the city hall.

Graffit is not the only change in the aesthetics of the urban space; inhabitants’ perception of their neighborhood is also transforming. “It has turned into an area where you can hang out, which is more livable and attractive,” said Jomag. Hence, it fosters space appropriation and a sense of belonging to the community. On top of that, the young hip hoppers are sending out not just a message of peace, but of pacific cultural resistance and community activism. “Arts and culture has provided these young people with what the political system and the economy has been unable to provide: a place in society,” said Lucía González, a social worker.

Art also gives a new image to the neighborhood, and therefore improve the reputation of the community. Many inhabitants of the 13th district are discriminated against solely because of the neighborhood they live in, but little by little, the perception that Medellin’s inhabitants have of the district is changing. In July 2016, a TED talk about the transformation of the 13th district was organized in the heart of the district, and attracted visitors from the whole city as well as foreigners, demonstrating the growing interest generated by this culture-driven transformation.

Art also serves as a historical record with many of the murals and songs documenting the armed conflict, describing the violent past to construct invaluable collective memory, ultimately, to prevent history from repeating itself. The graffiti “Orion never again” presents a child who is looking through a window broken by bullet, and in the background one can see a military helicopter firing.

This culture-driven transformation wasn’t made without difficulties: ten hip hop artists were murdered by the combos, and violence persists in the 13th district. Besides turning young people away from the combos, the hip hoppers also bring attention to the problems of the district, and as a consequence, call for a greater institutional presence. In 2009, “Kolacho” – then leader of this artistic movement – was murdered. His friends wanted to spread his legacy, and this is how the hip hop school “Casa Kolacho” was born. In 2012 another rapper, “El Duque”, was murdered, and the rest of the collective was threatened: 76 young artists were forced to leave the district.

The path is strewn with pitfalls, but today the 13th district is being transformed thanks to the joint effort of the government and the citizens, and this experience shows how art can be a driving force for important and lasting change. Close.

Inclusive recycling with waste pickers in Medellin?

Medellin, 18 July 2016 — Medellin’s achievement as a poster city for urban development was achieved, according to many, by promoting inclusive urban planning and listening to the voices of everybody, including the most disadvantaged. Does that hold true for the situation of waste pickers today? See more.

Inclusive recycling with waste pickers in Medellin?

Olga Abizaid and Federico Parra, Guest Contributors

Medellin, 21 July 2016

Medellin has recently been touted as a poster city for urban development. In recent years, the city has overcome the daunting urban economic and security challenges it faced in the 1980s and has evolved into a vibrant metropolis. The feat, according to many, was achieved by promoting inclusive urban planning and listening to the voices of everybody – including those in greater disadvantage.

Among them are the 3,663 waste pickers who make their living by collecting recyclables in the city – sometimes door-to-door, most times on the streets. The environmental impact of their work is generally not recognized, yet it provides a breather to the city’s landfill and raw materials for industries, improving the lives of the 2.5 million people living in the city.

In the last decade, however, there have been some changes. Waste pickers in Bogota, Colombia’s capital city, have made great strides on a national level – efforts that are now being seen around the country. Bogota’s waste pickers’ legal advocacy and the resulting pronouncements of Colombia’s Constitutional Court have led to the development of a national legal framework that mandates the inclusion and remuneration of waste pickers for the services they provide to society.

“If we looked back ten years, back then nobody knew who we were and what waste pickers did. Now, with what has happened and because of the legal framework, [we] are now recognized by the municipality,” says a women waste picker leader from Medellin.

Medellin’s municipality has made some strides towards the inclusion of waste pickers. Some of the policies include the development of the 2013 census, the provision of ID cards for waste pickers and capacity building for their organizations. Medellin has also entrusted some waste pickers’ organizations with the management of collection centers in the city. And there is some level of coordination with the municipal waste management company, EMVARIAS. Medellin was also a pioneer in engaging waste pickers’ organizations in the discussions around the municipal solid waste management master plans – even before that became mandatory with the issuance of National Decree 2981 of 2013.

But inclusion remains an unfinished task. For starters, most waste pickers are still not organized. And even for those who are, the new legal framework states that to become public service providers, waste pickers’ organizations need to comply with many formal requirements. To meet them, they need, among other things, to develop managerial and accounting skills, as well as the ability to relate with end users. They also need to acquire the necessary infrastructure to deliver recycling services.

The Asociación Nacional de Recicladores (ANR) and the Asociación de Recicladores de Antioquia, in tandem with support organizations like WIEGO and Fundación Familia, are providing local organizations with training on the legal framework and the requirements that must be met, and sharing experiences on how to negotiate for payment for their services.

While Medellin’s master plan foresees some support for three years, it is important that the city take into consideration the realities of the organizations, which are at different stages in their organizing processes and in their process to comply with the municipal requirements to become public service providers, and plan for adequate support and timelines for waste pickers’ transition towards formalization.

That is not waste pickers’ only worry: they fear that while they are working towards meeting the requirements, recycling may be given to other actors. For the formalization process to be effective, it is important that waste pickers’ livelihoods be protected during the transition. Formalization cannot be done overnight; it should be a gradual process, as was stated in the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Recommendation 204 on the transition from the informal to the formal economy. In the process to include waste pickers into solid waste management, the city government in Medellin should develop a solid work of engagement and accompaniment with waste pickers’ organizations. Only by doing this, will it ensure waste pickers will be able to meet the requirements demanded of them.

“We need to make them understand that there are things that we waste pickers can do directly, and that if even if we cannot do them, we want to be taken into consideration to give feedback and provide ideas,” says a Medellin waste picker.

Medellin’s past urban achievements are grounded in the fact that inclusion of disadvantaged populations is key to building the city’s prosperity. Right now, the city government has a unique opportunity to make a difference for waste pickers if it stays true to its original mantra of making a better and more equal city for everybody. Close.

Online citizen participation: An interview with Manuela Valencia of Cities for Life

Medellin, 27 May 2016 — Digital technologies enable new forms of citizen participation. Two online platforms were created in Medellin: citiesfor.life and MiMedellin. Manuela Valencia from Cities for life presents us their objetives and successes. See more.

Online citizen participation: An interview with Manuela Valencia of Cities for Life

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 27 May 2016

Where was the idea of creating the Citiesfor.life platform born?

In 2013, City Bank and the Wall Street Journal recognized Medellin as the most innovative city. Hence, we had the idea of inviting cities from all over the world to share their experiences with a focus on innovation and exchanging knowledge. So we organized the Cities for Life global meeting during August - September 2015. One of the reason that led us to do this was that in a globalized world, we face common challenges and opportunities, so we should collaborate to improve our efficiency. The event had a political component: 60 Mayors came from all over the world, signed the CFL Declaration and defined global challenges. It also had a technical component, gathering 90 national and international speakers who participated in a co-creation process in order to find solutions to the challenges previously defined.

We launched the citiesfor.life global platform during this meeting. This tool aims to provide this global community with a virtual space to share experiences, success stories and to keep participating in co-creation exercises.

What are the links between the citiesfor.life and MiMedellín platforms? How do they work?

Besides the meeting and the citiesfor.life platform, we work on the "MiCiudad" (MyCity) platform, which here is MiMedellín. MíCiudad will be implemented in several cities in Colombia and in the rest of the world. The citiesfor.life platform heads all these local initiatives. The local platform aims at fostering citizen participation and innovation, and at improving dialogue between the government and the citizens.

The platform allows you to ask an open question in order to listen to citizens. For example, in Medellin, we want to transform the city center. So we asked “How do you imagine Medellin downtown?” This question helped us to understand better what the specific challenges are. We received thousands of ideas about different topics, such as environment, mobility, public space, security. And one of the main challenges in the city center is security, and especially cellphone robberies. So then we had identified a critical issue, and we asked a specific question: "How would you counteract cellphone robberies in the center?"

In the platform, an option displays randomly two ideas and you can vote for one or the other. The system takes into account this vote, the “likes,” and establishes a Top 10 ranking of best proposals. Therefore, within the platform, there is a kind of citizen recognition that is very important during all the process.

Hence this platform helps the municipality to take decisions, allows a more efficient allocation of resources, and improves governance.

So, with all those ideas, you can define an urban project. But you can also define opportunities for the entrepreneurship sector. This is an innovative way of connecting the private sector with the city’s needs.

When the same challenge exists in many cities, and turns out to be global, or when we aren’t able to respond to the problem locally, we publish it on the citiesfor.life global platform, so that not only this community processes it but also the global community.

Little by little, we increase and strengthen the network of Cities for Life, composed of cities that signed the Cities for Life meeting declaration or confirmed their intention to adhere to its principles, and joined the platform. We also publish success stories in order to promote solutions to challenges that are faced by many cities.

How do these initiatives fit into Medellin’s strategy to become a smart city?

In Colombia, there is a decree on e-governance that defines cities’ responsibilities in implementing processes of open innovation. The platform, therefore, appears as a solution for cities to fulfil this obligation.

Medellin implements several policies in order to position itself as a smart city. For example, it is developing a strategy of open data and online access to information. We are going to connect this last strategy with the strategy of citizen participation in order to educate people on the use of those data for citizens to formulate more adequate proposals.

How do you analyse all the information that you receive?

This is a key part of our work. We work with Inspira Lab, a Medellin-based laboratory specialized in information analysis. They submit a report to us with the information organized and analyzed. They take into account every post and comment. They analyze which are the top ideas, make word clouds and identify innovative opportunities and trends in relation to citizens' ideas. All the proposals are georeferenced, so you can see the results for each location.

This finds its explanation in the digital fracture. In fact, just 500,000 people are connected to internet in Medellin, which is very low. Most of them are indeed young people and students. So we’re facing some constraints, but we do on-the-ground activities with the community in order to consider everyone.

For example, recently, MiMedellín was used as a tool for co-creating the Local Development Plan. There were work sessions in each district, and MiMedellín had stands where we presented the platform to the people. We taught them how to register, and how they can be active on the platform. We also registered the ideas of citizens who didn’t want to register to the platform.

We also go to the neighbourhoods and teach the elderly how to use the platform. There are also other participatory activities with other methodologies depending on the target group.

It is always necessary to articulate the two kinds of work: citizen participation through the platform and on the ground, directly with the community.Close.

Medellin’s Free Cycle-Sharing Program

Medellin, 20 April 2016 — Biking in Medellin is a new but growing phenomenon. The creation of a bicycle-sharing system called "EnCicla" has triggered a shift in transport modes and cycling in the city is increasing. See more.

Medellin’s Free Cycle-Sharing Program

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 20 April 2016

In the last decades, motor transportation has been booming in Medellín, and many new roads and highways have been constructed in response to this boom. However, there is a growing awareness of and concern about the consequences of this type of development. Commuters are stuck in traffic jams at peak hours, accidents are more and more numerous, and air contamination is becoming a serious issue.

The most recent development plan aims to foster cleaner and greener means of transport. Many projects have been implemented: the city is constructing new public transport systems, such as the BRT, tramway lines and new cable cars, and is encouraging walking and cycling.

Cycling has been made easier by the construction of nearly 40 kilometers of bike lanes, and to go along with that initiative, a bicycle-sharing system has been implemented, which has been a big success. The system, called "Encicla," started only five years ago, and already has 35,000 users, 52 bike stations and 1,500 bikes.

In 2011, three engineering students teamed up with the government to create a six-month-long pilot program to gauge if Medellín’s residents would be receptive to a bicycle-sharing system. The pilot program included six stations, located around the Atanasio Girardot Stadium, Medellin´s main sports complex. It was wildly successful, and since then has gradually expanded to other areas of the city.

One reason the program has been so successful is that it is entirely free: both Colombians and visitors can sign up, and then borrow bikes for up to an hour before returning them to a station.

Users have therefore many reasons to use the system: it’s economical, environmentally friendly, healthy, and is sometimes better than having your own bike, as you can decide to come back home by bus if it’s raining, or don’t have to worry about getting your bike stolen.

The greatest achievement of this bike-sharing system is likely its social impact. A study by the National University shows that of all bike users in the city, half of them use public bikes, mostly for economic reasons. In the one to six Colombian socio-economic stratification system, where the first stratum corresponds to the poorest and the sixth one to the richest, it is striking to see that the sixth stratum is that which uses this type of mobility the least, while people from the second strata are those who most use Encicla, which shows that it mostly benefits the poor. Considering the increasing prices of public transport (a 30% increase in the last five years), this entirely free system is a great initiative to make the city more inclusive.

Urban renewal projects will integrate this new mobility system: the River Parks project notably promotes green mobility, and will include new bike lines and Encicla stations.

Of course, there is still a lot to be done for Medellin to become a truly bike-friendly city. Cars dominate the roads, and bike users are still a minority. But one can feel that it is quickly changing. Close.

"Improvement without Barriers": An innovative program for the disabled poor

Medellin, 9 March 2016 — The program "Improvement without Barriers" aims to improve the quality of life of the disabled poor and their families. The idea is to intervene in their houses in order to adapt the spaces to the specific needs of the beneficiaries. This innovative program was among the five finalist initiatives at the World Habitat Awards 2015. See more.

"Improvement without Barriers": An innovative program for the disabled poor

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 9 March 2016

In UN reports, Medellin still tops the list of “unequal cities,” notably in terms of income inequality. Conscious of this challenge, the city has developed many programs aimed at reducing inequality—not only reducing the income gap, but also improving social equality and integrating minority or marginalized groups (women, the disabled, the elderly, etc.). The city, therefore, wants to include all of its varied residents, and has implemented many programs to meet the needs of those diverse groups.

One program notably aims at making the city more livable for the disabled poor. Called "Improvement without Barriers", it is developed by ISVIMED, the Institution for Social housing and Habitat of the city.

It started from a simple observation: one hardly sees disabled people in the city, while ISVIMED estimates that 12% of Medellin’s population suffers from some kind of disability. Many disabled people indeed depend on others to move, and therefore stay at home, where life is not always easy either: in poor areas, they live in small houses that are not adapted to their disability. In most cases, they cannot use their bathroom alone, which has various impacts. First, the disabled person lacks autonomy and privacy, effecting his or her self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of dignity. In poor areas, caretakers are, in most cases, family members, who sometimes have to spend most of their time with the disabled person, and therefore cannot work; thus, it also has an economic impact on the whole household.

ISVIMED, therefore, designed this program which focuses on adapting the house of the disabled poor in order to meet their needs. Some simple work, such as restructuring bathrooms, installing support bars, or other one-off interventions are sometimes enough for the beneficiary to gain independence, and their families can then spend more time in social or productive activities. One of ISVIMED’s requirement is indeed that the beneficiary earns no more than two minimum wages, which implies that they live in precarious conditions. The time that the caretaker gains is therefore very valuable.

The program is entirely financed by the city of Medellin through ISVIMED, and the low cost of each intervention enables the program to reach a relatively high number of houses for a limited budget (US$1.3m). Between 2013 and 2015, the program intervened in 1,450 houses in Medellin, in various neighborhoods of the city, such as Versalles, Picachito, Popular, Las Independencias, and Belén. As mentioned above, the program was among the five finalist initiatives at the World Habitat Awards, an award commissioned by the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF) and UN-Habitat, as it enables the disabled poor to get an adequate housing and improve their quality of life.

The main difficulty that the program met was the lack of reliable data on disabled in Medellin, explained ISVIMED in its presentation for the World Habitat Awards. As they could not identify potential beneficiaries themselves, they promoted the program through the media, and pushed people to present themselves. As a consequence, the program probably benefited to the most connected and integrated, while the elderly, those who do not have a TV and who are poorly connected to the city life, all in all, the most isolated (and the most in-need), could hardly be reached.

Interestingly enough, we can note that "Improvement without Barriers" is one of the very few individual-based (and not area-based) programs of ISVIMED: "The program is unique as it focuses on people’s necessities, and not on a sector’s necessities," as it is claimed in the presentation for the World Habitat Awards. However, the combination of many policies is needed to help all the disabled poor. "Improvement without Barriers" indeed only targets people who own their house, already have access to water and sewage services, and live in an area that is not considered "a high risk zone," as these are requirements to apply to the program. Just the last requirement alone is already very restrictive, as 35,000 houses are situated in "high risk zones" in Medellin, notably because the poor have settled in the hillsides, which are subject to landslides. Thus, the most excluded and marginalized first need other types of policies, such as risk mitigation, land regularization and access to basic services, which are more complex and slower to implement. Close.

Pedagogical urbanism: a new mode of planning in Medellin

Medellin, 29 February 2016 — Famous for its "social urbanism," Medellin has more recently experimented with "pedagogical urbanism," a kind of participatory process that aims to make projects more relevant to the population’s needs. See more.

Pedagogical urbanism: a new mode of planning in Medellin

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 29 February 2016

Famous for its "social urbanism," Medellin has more recently experimented with “pedagogical urbanism,” a concept invented during Mayor Gaviria’s administration (2012-2015). "Pedagogical urbanism" consists in involving citizens in public policy decision-making, which means understanding urbanism as a process that includes citizen participation. In the words of the City Hall, "all urban proposals should be discussed with the community, not only as a means of informing, and even less as a means of advertising, but rather as a way to make projects relevant to the everyday needs that only the community understands."

Social urbanism, which started during Fajardo’s administration (2004-2007), has enabled a great (and loudly publicized) urban transformation focused on social goals. Hence, pedagogical urbanism strengthens social urbanism and exceeds its objectives: the goal, then, is not only to implement a social project, but to do it together with the people concerned. It should be understood in the context of the great urban transformation in which the citizens want to participate. Medellin, and more generally Colombia, is also characterized by a lack of trust in politicians and in the administration, especially before Fajardo’s term, due to the high rates of corruption, low levels of transparency, and other dimensions of bad governance. Participation in urban projects is therefore beneficial, as it produces a relation of trust between the government and the people.

Often-quoted examples of pedagogical urbanism are the "Articulated Life Units" (Unidades de Vida Articulada, or UVAs), newly designed structures which directly result from the participatory process: workshops are organized for inhabitants to express what they would like in their neighborhoods, architects then bring their expertise to formulate into a structure. The UVAs serve as places of gathering in the neighborhood, and generally promote the development of sports, culture and recreation, but each UVA is unique, depending on the results of the participatory process.

Pedagogical urbanism also applies to large-scale projects, such as the "Medellinnovation" project, formulated by Ruta N, an urban renewal program that aims at creating a neighborhood of innovation. The methodology of pedagogical urbanism includes three stages: before, during and after the implementation of the project. In the case of Medellinnovation, which is still in the formulation stage, Ruta N organized 63 meetings with the population concerned. The meetings aimed at giving information and answering questions, but Ruta N also sought to involve citizens in the formulation of the project through workshops, in which local inhabitants had to bring ideas for the renewal of their neighborhood.

Such initiatives result from the idea that urbanism is not only about academics and experts, city dwellers can all contribute to the formulation of urban projects, as they are those who better know the neighborhoods and those who will become first-hand users of those projects. Community participation also ensures better appropriation of the projects.

However, as a study says, civil society actors only mildly influence the decision-making process in Medellin. Despite that, planners generally recognize that participation enables more sustainable plans, but in practice, there are actually many limits to community participation. First, the complexity of the presentations makes them difficult to understand by the local population, which sometimes has low levels of education. Many inhabitants also feel that they are only consulted on surface issues, while planners already formulated most of the project. Participatory processes sometimes even turn into conflictive situations: in the case of the "Medellinnovation" project, many inhabitants fear that it will start a process of gentrification, and that they will not be able to keep living in this neighborhood at the same living conditions, which creates tension between the experts of Ruta N and the local population. A meeting organized by Ruta N was, for example, interrupted, after participants decided to demonstrate or leave because the organizers did not allow a man to ask a question during the presentation. Many felt they were not really listened to, and did not think that their ideas and opinions were effectively incorporated in the project. They denounced a “symbolic participation”, or what Arnstein called the “empty ritual of participation,” in contrast with the effective power to affect policy outcomes.

All in all, pedagogical urbanism is an innovative participatory process, which enables the possibility to realize projects that are closer to the actual necessities of the population. However, we still do not know up to what point people’s ideas will be reflected in the most important decisions of Medellin’s major urban projects, such as "Medellinnovation." Close.

Medellin’s flagship project, "Parks of the Medellin River"

Medellin, 8 January 2015 — Medellin’s boldest project is certainly the river parks megaproject. The aim is to transform the river’s decaying and sub-utilized areas into attractive neighborhoods. The megaproject participates in creating new public space, making the city denser, and improving the mobility system. See more.

Medellin’s flagship project, "Parks of the Medellin River"

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 8 January 2015

Medellin has already presented its great urban turnaround to the world – it hosted the 7th World Urban Forum in 2014, as the city was considered a model for urban equity; it hosted the 2015 "cities for life" global meeting, and participated in various international meetings abroad, such as the COP21 in Paris. Many urban projects were then presented, such as the Metropolitan Green Belt project; the cable cars and giant escalators that allow the residents of the poor neighborhoods on the city’s steep hillside to easily commute to the center; the facilities built in the poorest areas, such as the library parks or the UVA, new public space encouraging citizens’ interaction and providing a forum for sports, culture and recreation.

The boldest and costliest project is certainly the Parks of the Medellin River megaproject. It aims to transform the surroundings of the river’s decaying and sub-utilized areas that many inhabitants consider frightening: it became the place where homeless people dwell, but also a place of drugs and crime.

The project will transform the area by burying a highway and building a park on top, creating new spaces for non-motorized mobility and changing the land occupation model to serve housing and commercial purposes. It will help making the city more compact - redevelopment projects are indeed much needed, as the Green Belt limits the urban spread. It also corresponds to international trends: similar to the Green Belt project, it aims to meet international standards such as the World Bank’s recommendations in terms of public space/inhabitant. It also takes as inspiration other international experiences of riverside renewal, such as Les Berges (Paris), "Millenium Park" (Chicago), or Via Parque Rimac (Lima). Medellín also follows the path of cities such as Madrid, Seoul, and San Francisco that have rethought their highways for the sake of public space.

The project will cost over 4.3 billion Colombian pesos and will cover 20 kilometers of riverbank. It will need 15 years to be implemented. As any ambitious project, the River Parks Project faces numerous challenges.

Firstly, there are practical issues: some argue that the river is now nothing more than a canal with a weak polluted stream. The burying of a 392-meter stretch of highway is also controversial, as it is extremely costly, and the closure of Medellin's main highway for a year is causing chaos.

On top of that, many don’t see the project as a priority, considering the social issues in Medellín. When interviewed on the matter, urban planning director Jorge Pérez Jaramillo commented: "No, it's not a priority, but we're investing less than 10% of the total investment budget in this project. Let's consider the whole city, not only this project,” arguing that Medellín also implements many social programs. The river parks project also includes some social aspects, as 10 to 20% of the new housing built will be social housing - a welcome change, considering that social housing solutions are so far mostly located in the hillsides, far away from the city center and poorly connected.

The project is still under implementation and time is needed to measure its social impact. However, one can be surprised that Medellin's flagship project includes so few social aspects. The river parks thus implies a discrepancy between on the one side the importance of making the city denser, improving the mobility system and creating new public space, and on the other side the social needs of the city. Close.

Urban vegetable gardens in Medellin

Medellin, 28 December 2015 — In Medellin, urban vegetables gardens address the two main challenges that cities are facing today: climate change and urban poverty. Indeed, urban agriculture has a great environmental impact, and also improves food security for poor urban dwellers. Learn here about the community gardens of Pinares de Oriente, and the project of aquaponics farming on rooftops of La Ciudad Verde. See more.

Urban vegetable gardens in Medellin

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

Medellin, 28 December 2015

While the COP21 is being held in Paris, cities across the globe are looking for innovative solutions to address climate change. The expected international agreement is crucial, but beyond states’ policies, we should recognize the importance of small, civil society initiatives at the local level.

Unfortunately, environmentalist movements are sometimes perceived as rich people’s concerns, and the solutions they bring at the local level can be seen as “hipster behaviors”, such as buying expensive organic food or riding a costly electric bicycle. However, eco-friendly initiatives are not restricted to the rich, and we should welcome initiatives which simultaneously address the two main challenges that cities are facing today: climate change and urban poverty. Urban vegetable gardens are one of those initiatives.

Growing fruits and vegetables in cities helps to relieve the urban heat island effect and participates in reducing food transport, packing and refrigeration. It is therefore widely applauded as a solution to address climate change at the local level. In the case of Medellin, several projects of urban agriculture benefit the poor: environmental and social issues are therefore answered by the same solution.

In Pinares de Oriente, an informal settlement on the city’s fringe, one feels both in the city and in the countryside: in the city, because the neighborhood is just 20 minutes away from the center by bus, and in the countryside, because many inhabitants of Pinares de Oriente are farmers who were displaced by the armed conflict, and they brought to Medellin their traditions from the Colombian countryside. The idea of community gardens therefore came naturally. The community initiative was helped by NGOs, universities and later by the local government, as part of the Green Belt project.

Clearly, the idea emerged because of economic reasons: the vegetables gardens aims at improving food security in the neighborhood. According to a 2010 study, 56.9% of households in Medellin suffer from food security issues: In Pinares de Oriente, urban vegetable gardens directly feed the families who take care of them, and the sale of surpluses can also generate earnings. Beyond the economic necessity, it also enables the inhabitants to preserve their traditions and identity, and according to many, it “humanizes” the city described as “an asphalt jungle”. "The community gardens are shelters in the midst of urban chaos, and these initiatives bring the city back to life," declared a gardener. The inhabitants show that rural activities - such as agriculture - can also find their place in the city: “They want to urbanize us; we want to ruralize the city”. They blame the low quality of large-scale industrial production that uses chemical products, and affirm that an alternative is possible, which would be more inclusive and more caring for the Pachamama (Mother Earth).

The vegetable gardens of Pinares de Oriente are possible thanks to the available space, as the neighborhood is located on the urban outskirts. Today, Medellin is getting denser and available grounds are growing scarce. As a community leader said, criticizing the verticalization of the city: "Medellin is growing upward, and we can’t plant in the air." How could we adapt this system of community gardens to a dense urban center?

La Ciudad Verde ("the green city"), a "think-do tank" on urban sustainability, has responded to the challenge with a project of aquaponics farming on rooftops. Aquaponics is a system that combines aquaculture (raising aquatic animals) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water). Basically, it means you’re growing vegetables above an aquarium. Why? Because the fish and the plants create an ecosystem. The fish waste provides an organic food source for the plants which purify the water the fish live in. Beyond all the previously mentioned benefits of urban agriculture, aquaponics farming enables a lower usage of water, as it is a close system, all water is recycled through the system and there is no need to change any water. The project also has social goals as it aims at giving employment to farmers who were displaced by the armed conflict and at providing the urban poor with cheaper food. Situated on rooftops, these vegetable gardens also revalorize under-utilized urban space. So far, only pilot projects have been launched, but the organization plans to launch its first aquaponics farming on the rooftop of the Pablo Tobón Uribe theatre.

Those examples show that the success of an environmental public policy lies in the inclusion of social goals, an idea already well understood by the civil society in Medellin, as we could see with these socially inclusive initiatives for sustainable development.Close.

Connecting outlying areas in East Medellin to the city center

Medellin, 30 November 2015 — Informal settlements have spread across Medellin's hillsides as people displaced by the armed conflict have arrived in the city. As spaces of deprivation, poverty, and violence, self-constructed neighborhoods have suffered from the lack of urban planning and state investment. The Integral Urban Project of Central East Medellin aims to integrate them better into the formal city, thanks in large part to a "green corridor." Beyond the social goals, the program is also linked to interests in expanding the touristic potential of the mountains: a Metropolitan Green Belt is under construction, providing citizens with a new urban space for recreation. See more.

Connecting outlying areas in East Medellin to the city center

Lou D'Angelo, Medellin Community Manager

In Medellin, informal settlements have spread in the mountains as people displaced by the armed conflict arriving in the city looking for economic opportunities. As spaces of deprivation, poverty and violence, self-constructed neighborhoods have suffered from the lack of urban planning and state investment. On the east side of the city, in the higher parts of the 8th district, or in neighborhoods outside the strict city limits such as El Faro, houses were constructed with precarious materials and don’t have access to water or electricity services. For them, mobility is difficult.

Since the election of Mayor Fajardo in 2004, the city has implemented public policies focused on reducing the profound "social debt" that the city administration had accumulated towards neglected areas, especially the hillside communities. In the context of these policies, known under the umbrella term "social urbanism", the Integral Urban Project of Central East Medellin was launched to better integrate those neighborhoods into the formal city, primarily due to a "green corridor": a tram line and two cable car lines that connect these informal neighborhoods to the city center.

In Medellin, mobility is considered a key social policy. The city was elected "the most innovative city of the world" for the cable car and urban escalators of the 13th "comuna" (then the most dangerous part of the city). Transport helps increase not only the accessibility but also the visibility of local residents and their settlements; it enables them to feel a part of the city. The Integral Urban Project of Central East Medellin also includes works such as housing and public space improvement. It is, therefore, presented as a means to improve social integration, economic conditions, and security in these peripheral neighborhoods.

Beyond the social goals, this green corridor is also linked to recent interests in expanding the touristic potential of the mountains, as it will also connect the city center to the Metropolitan Green Belt, which is under construction. This mega-project aims to contain the urban sprawl to guard Medellin’s ecosystems, but also to provide citizens with new urban space for recreation. It therefore requires transformation of those marginalized zones. While many families benefit from the Green Belt project – houses are renewed, jobs in construction are given, and financial assistance is offered to community vegetable gardens. Street vendors, too, will benefit from tourism. Yet other families will be evicted from their houses for the construction of the projects or to recover the hillsides. Many inhabitants have already been displaced by the armed conflict and built their houses themselves, hoping to start a new life in the city. They now feel attached to the neighborhood where they built their economic and social relations, and therefore strongly oppose the idea of being evicted and moved into city-built one-size-fits-all tower blocks. Moreover, most evictions are done under the motive that houses are situated in "high risk zones" (landslides being frequent in Medellin's hillsides). It's also the reason why those houses were denied access to water and electricity services. However, in the same zone, heavy infrastructure will be built as part of the Green Belt project, e.g. a monorail.

A territorial dispute has therefore emerged over these grounds. This integral urban project reflects the change in the city model of development – from state neglect to "hyperintervention" – as well as the city’s internationalization – financed by international funds (the transport system is notably financed by the French Development Agency). While communities are not opposed to development and internationalization and do claim that investment is necessary in the territory, they want to receive recognition for the social construction of the habitat and to participate in the transformation. Some feel there is a risk of gentrification, and some local organizations regret the poor dialogue with the communities in the design of the projects. These communities need other types of intervention – for example better access to education and to water and electricity services – and want their voices to be heard.Close.

Let's empower citizens to recreate cities

Public space is a powerful emblem of the urban world, because it unites people, ideas and actions with a territory. Parks, city centers, and friendly pedestrian streets are the spaces where rich and poor, young and old can interact. Thus, if we want to have a right to the city, we must have a right to public space. Read more.